On the recordMay 8, 2014
I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I was touring a hospital in the Rio Grande Valley the other day, and we were going through the critical care unit, with young babies 25, 26 weeks old who in past years would, frankly, have never survived. But today, because of medical breakthroughs, they will not only not have a lifetime of chronic diseases and disabilities, but they will live a full life because the medical breakthroughs and innovations developed here in America are giving them a life, frankly, their parents never hoped for. I see our veterans coming back from war, some of them with such terrible injuries, who not only are having their lives restored but, through these remarkable prosthetics, are living full lives that, again, wouldn't have been possible in recent years, even, because we are doing innovation here in America. Each day, we read of another U.S. company being courted to move those medical breakthroughs and that research overseas to other countries, to China, to Europe, to others. We are seeing America lose our edge in innovation, even though everyone knows--Republicans and Democrats--that the country that innovates the most will lead the world in economic growth, period. We know it. And I look at statements such as this. And I will read this. It is a direct quote: I believe it is critical that our tax system provide strong incentives to help our manufacturing base.…
